Background and objectives: The wheat as a main cultured grain in Iran can be used in animal nutrition. Urea as a nitrogen source combined with NaoH and formaldehyde can be slowly used by microorganisms. On the other hand, different physical processing methods can affect on degradability of nutrients in the rumen and other parts of gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, the aim of this research was to study the effects of using wheat processed by different methods on the performance, chemical composition and blood digestibility in fattening lambs.

Results: Results indicated that chemical-physical processing of grain wheat had significant effect compare to control group on daily weight gain of lambs (P<0/05). Moreover, average daily gain (ADG) of urea+NaoH+Pelletig treatment was significantly higher than control and grinding treatments (P<0.05). On the other hand, result showed that gain at the end of experimental period was significantly higher for chemical-physical treatments compare to control and grinding treatments (P<0.05). Result showed that chemical-physical processing of grain wheat did not affect on dry matter intake (DMI) during total feeding trial (P>0.05). For feed conversion ratio (FCR) results showed that chemical-physical processing lead to improvement in feed conversion ratio (FCR) compare to control and grinding treatments (P<0.05) and at the end of the experimental period chemical+Pelletig , treatment had the least feed conversion ratio (FCR) (P<0.05). Chemical-physical processing can be effectively lead to improvement of digestibility of dry matter, neutral detergent fiber, acid detergent fiber and starch of grain wheat (P<0.05) but digestibility of organic matter and crude protein did not affected (P>0.05).

Conclusions: The result of this study showed that based on positive effects of processing wheat on growth performance and digestibility of nutrients, by suitable processing method, wheat can be effectively used as a source of of energy for ruminants.